Wine in supermarkets bill passes committee

The House committee that killed last year's version of a bill to allow wine sales in Tennessee grocery stores has overwhelmingly voted in favor of giving cities the ability to hold referendums on the proposal.

The House Local Government Committee on Tuesday voted 13-3 to advance the bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Jon Lundberg of Bristol.

Lundberg had boiled down the measure to specifically address whether local governments should be able to hold a vote on allowing wine to be sold outside of liquor stores.

A separate bill to define which stores would be eligible to sell wine was introduced in another House committee on Tuesday.

Under that proposal, stores would have to derive at least 20 percent of their sales from groceries in order to qualify.